Security researchers have warned about a new wave of investment scam trying to oppose the public awareness of the presidential debate last month.
Netcraft said it had found 24 of such domains that were related to the debate, including 14 phishing sites that use the word ‘debate’ in their domain, such as’ Debetetrump[.]io, “and” Tesladebate[.]com. “
“All examples use the image of the Republican presidential nominated Donald Trump, tech entrepreneur and billionaire Elon Musk, or a mix of both,” explained it.
“Criminals probably use these personas to add legitimacy to their crypto investment theme – a political leader, one policy investigator – both of which convey the perception of wealth and authority.”
Read more about investment scam: Investment fraud is now the largest cyber crime earner
Crypto doubling scam victims of the trick to transfer their cryptocurrency with the promise to double their ‘investment’. They offer rapid return and fake approval of celebrities, but little transparency about how the schedule works.
The threat actors also try to hurry victims to make hasty decisions by creating a sense of urgency – a classic social engineering trick.
Netcraft shared different variations on the scam, one using the head, “Elon Musk x Donald Trump Crypto Giveaway.” It has trusted brand logos of the Trump campaign, graphs and diagrams to add legitimacy and QR codes to link to a payment page.
Another refers to the debate directly and contains the images of Donald Trump, Elon Musk and democratic hopeful Kamala Harris.
“The page contains the Tesla logo of Elon Musk instead of Trump’s campaignogo, which shows how criminals adjust their content to appeal to another audience, ie politically involved versus cryptocurrency -minded,” Netcraft claimed.
Distributed via social media
The supplier said it has observed this presidential debate theme theme Crypto-Doubling scams that are distributed by hijacked and malignant YouTube channels in which Musk discusses the debate, although it claimed that they are also spread on X, Facebook, Instagram and Telegram.
“For the imitated brands and personas, this type of scam trust and credibility touch and can lead to a recoil of victims, as well as surplus legal and customer service costs. The time needed to earn back these losses can have far -reaching consequences,” Netcraft concluded.
“Identifying and removing the digital content that is used to focus on victims via these campaigns requires speed, accuracy and scale.”